"He probably wishes that the emails were never invented," said Phil Willis MP, the committee chair, who had earlier questioned Jones in person during a committee hearing. "But apart from that, we do believe that Professor Jones has in many ways been scapegoated as a result of what really was a frustration on his part that people were asking for information purely to undermine his research."

Investigating accusations that the emails proved that climate science was flawed and corrupted, the parliamentary report concluded that committee members had found no such evidence. UEA responded: "We particularly welcome this report, which finds that there is 'no case to answer' of any accusations of dishonesty against Professor Jones and CRU … UEA both accepts and supports the committee's findings about the increased need for greater transparency whenever possible in science and particularly climate science."

"We saw no evidence of any deliberate scientific malpractice in any of the work of the CRU and had it been there we believe that it is likely that we would have detected it," the review concluded. "Rather we found a small group of dedicated if slightly disorganised researchers who were ill-prepared for being the focus of public attention. As with many small research groups, their internal procedures were rather informal."

The review did state, though, that there were "important and unresolved questions" related to the availability of environmental data sets, and that it was "very surprising" that CRU's research "not been carried out in close collaboration with professional statisticians". It added that it agreed with CRU's position that the "authority for releasing unpublished raw data to third parties should stay with those who collected it".

UEA responded: "It is gratifying to us that the Oxburgh report points out that CRU has done a public service of great value by carrying out meticulous work on temperature records when it was unfashionable and attracted little scientific interest." (6)

As with the parliamentary report, prominent climate sceptics labelled the Oxburgh report a "whitewash", adding that they had serious concerns about the speed at which the report was conducted, as well as questioning Lord Oxburgh's independence by pointing out he has close links to businesses investing in low-carbon technologies.